DIAGONAL SIN

J. T. BLEU

In the law’s clutter

Some statistician

Forgot to calculate

The angles of our

Various reflections in

    daylight

    moonlight

    arc light

    flashlight

    and more:

    how the visible spectrum is limited. 

A poet, illimitable, may take another slant:

Measure an Ephah

Full of Anger and Pain

And find the weight of a soul in chaos;

Revealing that delay means plenty for some,

And husks for others.

She knows suffering,

She knows the measured rhythm

Of the night is vaporized

In blue and black smoke,

And she knows the musician’s secret: 

Music is an escape – and an accounting.

Variations on the Theme

Add nuance

Extra lines and shading,

More reminders of our shared

Incarnadine line.

 

Binaries divulge and DNA reveals

We bleed Equations,

Codes, Passwords,

And the all-hallowed Pin:

But only flesh and blood—

Intrinsic to pain—

Bears the wounds of diagonal sin.

CHASM -- WALLS by J. T. BLEU

CHASM-WALLS 

by J. T. BLEU

The wall became visible on a Monday,

No, it was a Thursday, definitely by Friday.

Was the chasm always there?

Yes, but now it is massive.

Between sobs and victimization

The claws came out.

The hive was weaponized—

Each to their tribe,

Each to their weapon of choice,

Each breast sheathed

To prevent bleeding

And mother’s milk. 

MUSIC

"...and now must we to her window, and give some evening music to her ear."

Shakespeare

THE FALLS OF ’76 by J. T. BLEU

I bring doubt and questions to the sight,

                From the oceans and the lakes;

I bear the pain of knowing the cause of

                Why such falls are not fakes.

From invisible wings I shake off the dew

                That woke my mind to sweet buds of

Thought– each brooding spark from my pilot

Who sits in the thunder and lightning

Struggling in howling fits of recognition

                As the jagged crag of a mountain appears

At the edge of the falls before dark.

Whenever I dream of waterfalls

                Under mountains, trees, or in shopping malls,

My spirit revives in the pale-blue white mist as

Smiles from the depths of a purple sea;

This land is yours and mine and the nurslings too;

                And the eagle aloft may sit by us still

As an earthquake rocks the burning sunrise

                With a crimson wall of wave after wave

Of new blood: churning, burning for freedom and

                The Love that remains when all is said and done

While my inspiration dissolves into rain.